Strangely, I don't remember them ever restricting 653 tubing sets to 753 Cert builders, but it would always have been better to silver solder the rear stays.
Reynolds (or their wholesalers) never asked to see my certificate and it was soon surpassed by 853 anyway. I think it was more that people who bought anything 753 wanted to see that certificate on the wall, so the QA was more at the customer end rather than tube supply.
Any decent frame would probably have been silver soldered throughout any way. I always found 40% silver far better to work with than brass on the cast lugs I used: better edges and less clean up, but won't fill the gaps that you get on cheap pressed lugs etc. and only very small fillets are advisable (or possible, so that might be a guide). The extra cost in using silver solder was minute in comparison with the overall production cost, (£10-15 perhaps).
All the best,
Reynolds (or their wholesalers) never asked to see my certificate and it was soon surpassed by 853 anyway. I think it was more that people who bought anything 753 wanted to see that certificate on the wall, so the QA was more at the customer end rather than tube supply.
Any decent frame would probably have been silver soldered throughout any way. I always found 40% silver far better to work with than brass on the cast lugs I used: better edges and less clean up, but won't fill the gaps that you get on cheap pressed lugs etc. and only very small fillets are advisable (or possible, so that might be a guide). The extra cost in using silver solder was minute in comparison with the overall production cost, (£10-15 perhaps).
All the best,
